Aletsch Glacier Subglacial Water Pressure and Temperature Data

Fluctuating groundwater pressures in turn increase or reduce effective joint normal stresses, affecting the yield strength of discontinuities. Here we extend simplified assumptions of glacial debuttressing to investigate how glacier loading cycles together with changing groundwater pressures generate rock slope damage and prepare future slope instabilities.

Using hydromechanical coupled numerical models closely based on the Aletsch Glacier valley in Switzerland, we simulate Late Pleistocene and Holocene glacier loading cycles including long-term and annual groundwater fluctuations. Measurements of transient subglacial water pressures from ice boreholes in the Aletsch Glacier ablation area, as well as continuous monitoring of bedrock deformation from permanent GNSS stations helps verify our model assumptions.